


would you like fries with that?

by ilgaksu



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Food Service, Army Brat Bucky Barnes, F/M, Fast Food, Fast Food Worker Steve Rogers, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, fast food au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:13:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3493058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You wanna hear a funny story, Stevie?"</p><p>In which Bucky is a lonely army brat, and Steve Rogers is done with taking your orders already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	would you like fries with that?

The day Steve quits, he sets fire to the counter. It sounds like poetic justice, but it’s not even deliberate. It is, like so many things, a complete accident. It is, like so many things, just something that’s gone wrong.  

This isn’t even supposed to be where the story starts. Let’s get something in the right order for once. Let’s get something right for once. Well, let’s try.

Let’s rewind.

 

*

 

"You wanna hear a funny story, Stevie?"

Bucky throws himself down into a chair, but all his loose limbs are taut at the edges, his jaw working. Steve can feel the strain.

"There’ll be an honour guard at my old man’s funeral and he always used to tell me I’d be there, standing in it, like I’d been made to make him proud. There’ll be an honour guard at my old man’s funeral when he goes and I don’t know what I’m gonna do now ‘cause if I’m not standing in that honour guard, Steve, what am I supposed to be doing with my hands? What do you do with your fucking hands at a thing like that if you’re not holding your gun with your best guys, making him proud? You answer me that, Steve. You answer me that."

Steve swallows; something in Bucky’s eyes has broken like a wishbone and when he looks in them too long they reflect back himself. Bucky fixes him with a level look, daring him to say something.

"It ain’t my place to be asking you nothing about that, Buck," Steve says, backtracking for the first time in years. "I’m sorry I looked at your things that time. I know I wasn’t s’posed to." The words weigh in his mouth. But when you start running, they don’t let you stop and Bucky just keeps _talking._

"Yeah, be careful what you wish for, don’t I know it." Bucky rolls his eyes, almost slurring but not quite. "I was top of my class graduating, you know. Best sniper they’d turned out in the last twenty years, they said. They did, they said that. I don’t look it, but I was and all. Got my records somewhere if you don’t believe it."

"I believe you, Bucky," Steve replies softly, "You’re always real careful with your hands."

"How long you been looking at my hands, huh," Bucky tries, but the flirt in him is fighting a losing battle with melancholy. Bucky Barnes is drunk in Steve’s apartment and Steve is where he thought to go, and -

"You wouldn’t believe the girls I got with that one. Boys too," Bucky brags, and something in Steve’s stomach twists, something ugly and snarling. "People like a war story, and a cadet’s close enough when they close their eyes."

"I’m sure you did. You want me to get you some water?"

"Nah, I’m good."

Steve goes and pours him a glass anyway. Puts it on the table beside him.  Bucky is looking at the walls, at the art that spills over.

"You got nice hands too, Steve," Bucky tells him. "To make all this. I couldn’t make this up if I tried."

"You could."

Bucky snorts and shakes his head.

"Only ever good at one thing, and they threw me out of it. For it. Whichever. It don’t matter. I wouldn’t care, only - only that fucking honour guard, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Drink some water, Buck. It’ll make you feel better in the morning."

Bucky levels him another sardonic look and a muttered “you ain’t my mother, Rogers,” but obediently drinks.

*

Sorry about that. We didn't go back far enough. You weren't supposed to hear that story yet.

You weren't supposed to find it funny either, but then again. But then again.

*

"So, that’s one large strawberry milkshake. Is that all for today?"

In case you’re wondering: Steve’s smile is as plastic as his name tag, he’s counting the minutes down to the end of his shift and he is unbearably, chronically done with this shit. It’s 2:30a.m., he’s been left alone on the counter again, and the automated till is on the blink. He hits a bit harder this time and it flickers back into life.

"You have beautiful eyes," the drunk girl at the front of the queue says, swaying slightly. Steve silently prays she isn’t going to keel over right there: he can’t pick up the mop bucket when it’s full of water, let alone her. Her own eyes are unfocused. Steve isn’t sure if she can even tell what colour his eyes are right now, but the compliments in this job are as scarce as they come, so he just smiles that smile again.

"Thanks. That’ll be a dollar ninety five." She giggles as he hands her the change and then her milkshake. He turns to the next customer but mercifully Sam comes from out back to rescue him; Steve grabs the blue paper towels and cleaning spray and heads out to the seating areas. Sam smiles as he passes and raises his eyebrows.

"You okay?"

"Never better," Steve replies, and Sam laughs.

Steve never used to like cleaning. Then he went into customer service. Now he loves the cleaning jobs. It’s then he can disappear back into his own head, paint behind his eyes whilst he wipes down tables. He draws the gurgling babies in their high chairs as he breaks down cardboard meal deal packets to feed into the waste bins, stencils in the kohl-eyed teenagers picking out filters on their phones. He listens to hungover confessions from the corner table of glassy-eyed students. He watches nervous fourteen-year-olds on their first dates, baleful families pit-stopping on their road trips, professions of love by girls fizzy-eyed with alcohol, hugging their bestest bestest friends and laughing in a hysterical pack.

He counts his purgatory in dollar bills, puts the black nail polish at the back of the bathroom cupboard, leans against the counter after being run off of his feet during lunch hour and relearns how to breathe. He talks Natasha out of talking him into dates, lies down for the physio and feels the paper covering on the table crackle against his face, smiles his fast food smile at the doctor and knows it doesn’t reach his eyes.

"I’m doing okay," he says, "Yeah, I’m doing fine."

It’s just a job, he tells himself. It’s just a job.

*

That's better.

*

"Hey, sunshine," he hears from behind him and rolls his eyes, fighting down a smile. He puts the spray bottle down and glances at the counter. Things have quietened down; nobody’ll call him out on it if he stops to talk.

"Don’t you have anywhere better to be, Barnes?" he asks, straightening up and turning around, eyebrows already raised. He smiles, concedes the battle. Hooks his thumbs in the belt loops of his uniform (one size fits most, and that most isn’t Steve Rogers) and tilts his head to look up at Bucky, who shrugs.  

"You know me," Bucky replies, completely deadpan, "It’s not my fault your milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. How you been, Stevie?"

Steve snorts, surprising himself, and Bucky laughs in return. Bucky’s grin always reaches his eyes. It’s something Steve likes about him. It’s something Steve’ll allow himself to admit he likes about him.

"My name ain’t Stevie, or don’t they teach you how to read on the army’s dime?" He taps his name tag.

"Nah, they reckon we ain’t worth the trouble. We’re only the spawn, after all." Bucky’s looking at him now with real concern; Steve must’ve been doing the eyes thing again. He smiles for real and Bucky blinks at him, looking kinda winded.

"I’m fine, Buck. Just tired."

"You need a lift home?" Bucky offers, there in his pristine shirt like he’s come to ask for Steve’s hand. _I can help you_ , his eyes say, so Steve doesn’t look too closely.  

"My mama warned me about boys like you," Steve tells him instead of what he wants to, "Turnin’ up at my place of employment, offering me rides places."

"I got Biscuit fixed up today," Bucky adds, "She’s running like silk."

"Biscuit is a stupid name for a bike," Steve replies, "I hope you realise that; and also, I ain’t getting on that death trap on these two legs, James Barnes, so you better give up."

"I come into your work, I offer to whisk you away and we could be riding off into the sunset right now, Steve, I hope you know that. Right now."

"I’ve still got half an hour on the clock."

"Well, in half an hour. They’re working you too hard, Stevie. Tell them they’re working you too hard."

"Yeah, well. Good things come to those who wait, Buck." Steve lets that sink in for a minute; saves Bucky’s expression for later. "Go sit down. I’ll go get your milkshake."

*

The rest of his shift goes slow after Bucky leaves.

Steve goes home, pulls the duvet taut over his head, and hopes tomorrow will go quick. Hopes that'll just slip by in a rush of bright lights and oil.

Be careful what you wish for, remember?

*

When he comes to, it’s to the slick of grease and disinfectant against his face and Sam crouching anxiously beside him. Steve’s ears are ringing and the walls seem to pulsate with white noise, everything blurry and bright and beeping like the fryers - just as non-stop, only louder.

"You okay there, Rogers?" Sam asks, fawn-eyes big with concern. He lets it show and it prickles underneath Steve’s skin, lodges there like a splinter in his ribs.

“‘M fine, Sam. Let me up.” He puts his hand down on the wet floor and slips back again. Sam catches him, helps him sit up.

"Go away, nothing to see here," Sam says to the gaggle of customers watching them. Steve just glares, not sure how the intention actually translates: he’s a bit disorientated after fainting, always has been. They disperse slowly.

"Steve, you just," Sam makes a waving motion in lieu of words, "out right there on the floor. You hit the back of your head good and hard. You aren’t fine."

"I am fine," Steve snaps back out of habit, out of reflex, and sees Sam’s eyes flinch back even as his smile stays constant. The throb at the back of his head says no, but Steve has always shouted yes over his body’s drone of enough and stop and can’t. He struggles to his feet; Sam watches him and holds out a hand cautiously. Steve lets himself take it.

"Your boy Barnes might be falling for this bullshit, but I won’t, Steve. Too stubborn for your own good."

Bucky doesn’t fall for it. Steve knows. But sometimes he pretends he does and Steve pretends to buy it, and they both spend an awful lot of time at that pretending game and -  

"Stood too long," he mutters, "It happens. I’m fine." I’m used to it, he’d say, if it’d help. It wouldn’t help. It never does.  

"Yeah, well, you’re going home."

"Sam, no.”

"Wasn’t my call. Manager’s orders."

"Shit." Steve rubs the back of his head again. Going home means not getting paid for the full shift, and anybody who’s anybody knows that. "I’m fine, I swear."

"Get out of here, Steve, or I’m calling Barnes on you." The concern hasn’t wavered; it sharpens again. "Wait, should I be calling Barnes on you? How are you getting home?"

"I got legs, don’t I?"

Steve can’t afford to do anything else but walk, even though the journey means he has to lean against walls several times and catch his breath where it’s trapped, rattling, in his chest. Sam’s face says it all.

”That’s it. I’m calling him. You’re going in the staff room and staying put.”

"Don’t tell me what to do, Sam," Steve retorts, flushing with humiliation. He doesn’t want Sam ringing Bucky like he’s some child gone all sick on a school day. He can’t make a break for it either, Sam’s face is that resolute expression he gets when he’s set his mind on how this is going to go.

"Don’t be stupid, Steve," Sam says, "You’re too good for that."

Steve lets himself be steered into the staff room, ignoring the side-eyes and the glances from the guys working on the drive-thru, seething the entire time.

*

Steve ends up going near that deathtrap bike after all. It rattles down to his bones, the wind stinging at his face, hands shoved into Bucky's jacket pockets to keep warm. Steve smells like a kitchen and knows it, but Bucky don't seem to care none. He don't seem to care at all.

Steve smiles. He can't see to check, but it feels real enough.  

*

Bucky’s apartment is pristine. Steve hates it on sight. He doesn’t ask where all Bucky’s stuff is, because there’s a packed duffel bag by the door; when he looks in, there’s clothes and they’re all clean. He wanders slowly, alert to the sounds of Bucky chattering over the sound of coffee prep in the tiny kitchen, offering up non-committal responses every now and again.

He passes the ironing board folded up by the wall, the single hanger on a hook, the military-grade neatness of the bed, the bare manila walls. Steve’s apartment is shit, but he’s papered over the cracks with watercolours, figured that’s just what you did, what you could to make it all bearable, but -

Steve reckons Bucky could be packed and out on the road in under a half hour. This place is the purgatory of James Buchanan Barnes, not his final resting place, and Steve feels betrayed in some small inscrutable way.

There’s one photograph, in a frame on a shelf. The books, battered Asimov paperbacks, are piled in such a way that you could grab them at an armful and run. It’s Bucky laughing in that blue shirt, arms slung around two younger girls who have the same eyes, the same arch of eyebrows, the same same same -

"You never said you had sisters," Steve calls and can hear Bucky shrug somehow, though he knows that’s impossible, can hear it in his voice as he calls back.

"Yeah, they’re sweet kids. You take milk?"

"Uh-huh," Steve replies, reaching for _A World Out Of Time_ off the shelf.

The spine isn’t cracked like the others are and when he pulls it open a small candid falls out. Bucky stands to attention, in full dress uniform and rifle, hair clipped brutally short underneath his hat. He isn’t smiling. Even if he was, Steve doubts it would reach his eyes. He’s still staring at it when Bucky walks through the connecting door a second later, chattering away still.

"And then - Steve, what, you -"

He stops short. An ugly pause. Steve makes himself look at Bucky. Bucky looks mostly confused, a little hurt.

"You goin' through my things, Stevie?" Bucky asks softly.

"You never said you’d been in the army," Steve returns, and it didn’t mean to sound accusatory but it did, it did, and they both knew it and Steve can't go back from it but he wishes he could -

Bucky sighs and puts the mugs of coffee down on the empty coffee table. He doesn’t say anything.

"Bucky, you said it was your dad in the army," Steve persists, "You never said it was you."

"Yeah, well," Bucky snaps back, his mouth all bitter, "Some things just run in the family, don’t they?"

Steve stares back, thinks of his mother laid out in her hospital bed, thinks of saving up to buy a suit just in case, thinks of looking at the circles bruising to purple beneath both their eyes in both their faces. Steve Rogers owns one suit and a lot of black nail polish and he doesn’t wear either anymore. Bucky Barnes owns one duffel bag, some Asimov paperbacks and a blue shirt that's good with his eyes. He’s looking at Steve right now with a soft, sick wrench of feeling.

“I guess I wouldn’t know,” Steve says finally, “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t know.”

*

  
Nobody’s ever good at this part.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i used to work in the fast food industry. yes, all the customers are based on real customers we received. 
> 
> yes,
> 
> i have a [tumblr](ilgaksu.tumblr.com) if you're into that sort of thing
> 
>  


End file.
